Actors, Musicians, Composers Against Paralysis (AMCAP)

Donald F. Taylor—an artist, musician and composer—was paralyzed in 1991 by a hit and run driver. Releasing his first CD after being paralyzed, Taylor is working with The Christopher Reeves Paralysis Foundation, donating a percentage of all sales from his CD, The Long Journey Home.

According to Taylor, “AMCAP is an organization [whose mission is] to make more information available about curing paralysis. We are calling on the artistic community to help find that cure through donation and raising funds to help defeat this terrible condition. When Christopher Reeves was paralyzed, more attention was brought to this worldwide problem. Paralysis needs a new spokesperson to take over where Christopher Reeves left off—an advocate to speak for so many who go unheard. AMCAP needs the entire artistic community to step forward and take a stand to find a cure for paralysis.

“Paralysis is a hideous condition that can not be explained in words,” Taylor continues. “Most people have no idea about the devastating toll this condition takes on one’s life, family and finances. It is the opposite of being brain dead, but it is your body that is dead, constantly fighting against pneumonia, bed sores and other assorted chronic illnesses.”

Taylor asks all musicians to help find a cure for paralysis. “If every musician would just donate a small amount from their sales, concerts, or just from the heart, it could help improve the lifestyle of thousands of people that live with paralysis,” he says.

“The time is now to cure paralysis,” Taylor concludes. “From the most famous to unknowns, it strikes you down from the youngest to the oldest. Paralysis does not discriminate! People are usually blind to the fact because you rarely see a paralyzed person on the street. They are usually shut-ins, never going outside, stuck in a room, prisoners of their own bodies.”